Let's open up our Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 17. We're going to look this morning at verses 1 through 9. And we're going to look at the birth of the church in Thessalonica. That's the title of my message, The Birth of a Church in Thessalonica. Now, there's a lot of talk and it's become very prominent to talk about church planting. And church planting is a task that's commissioned by God And we are told to go and make disciples. And Jesus Christ built the church to show forth His glory. And He equipped the church to make disciples. Part of what the church does is teach those in the church and instruct them so that they grow. That's why we meet together and open up the Word. So when we think about evangelism in a biblical principle, it's not some guy with five messages and three suits that travels the country preaching in revival meetings. That's not biblical evangelism. While there's not anything technically wrong with that, what we're talking about in church planting is going into an area and planting a biblical church. Now we call that birthing a church. or giving birth to a church. And that's probably a more accurate description rather than church planting. And I'll tell you why. When you plant a church or when you birth a church, it is painful. Childbirth is painful. If you've ever had it done naturally, it's painful, right? Ladies, you may not agree. The rest of the service, now's your chance to amen. Yes, childbearing is painful. It's called, it's termed as painful. Jesus uses that to describe his return. These are the beginning of birth pains. This groaning that the earth is under, the curse of sin, this is being described as the pains of childbirth. When a church is born, it also comes with much pain. Here's why. The world hates the church. Since the world hates the church, what the world wants to do is hurt the church or stop the church from growing or becoming what it should be. You see in Revelation chapters 12 and 13, the war of the world. God chooses a people out of the world and Satan pursues that people. He's got an elect lady and the dragon. This is the symbolism used in Revelation, the dragons. pursuing a lady and the lady gives birth to a son. This is symbolic of the Jewish nation giving birth to a son, Jesus Christ. And he tries to kill Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ comes back from the dead. And so now he, the devil, hates all of those who love the son. So, the world around us, in planning and establishing a church upon the preaching of the Word, the world around them is going to try to stop them and pursue them and keep them from becoming a church. Planning churches is not some happy, skippy-go-lucky thing where, oh, we're planning a church, it's all going to be fun and games and joy and roses. No, it's not. It's probably going to be hatred and ugly and bad things are going to occur. And when we look at the beginning of this church in these nine verses, we're going to see that it's a very painful time. Although there's rejoicing and great work going on in glorifying God, there's also much hurt, much affliction. Let's begin reading in verse 1 and we'll go through verse 9. It says, Now when they had passed through Amphilopolis and Apollona, they came to Thessalonica. And there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These have turned the world upside down, and are come hither also, whom Jason hath received. And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason and of the others, they let them go." So, let's look at how the church planning or the birth of a church in Thessalonica went. The first three verses you see Paul's reasoning. Paul's reasoning. It says in verse 1 that when they had passed through Amphilopolis and Apollona, They came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Now Thessalonica is the city in which the books of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians was written to. Thessalonians is the citizens name of those who live in the city of Thessalonica. And we know from our study of the first book of 1st Thessalonians We know that this was a great church. These were great people. Paul didn't come to them with a bunch of negative sayings. Paul didn't come to them with a bunch of correction. But rather he taught on deeper subjects. Because the church at Thessalonica was a strong church. They were a good church. And the city of Thessalonica had a synagogue. It says Paul there went to the synagogue of the Jews. Now, in order for you to have a synagogue in your city, you were required to have at least ten committed Jewish males. You had to have ten Jewish men in order to have a synagogue. You will remember in the chapter prior to this, chapter 16, Paul went to Philippi and they didn't have a synagogue. As a matter of fact, there was a Jewish woman leading prayer down by the riverside. You remember this? Because there were not enough men in the city to have a synagogue, so the women band together. Here at Thessalonica, they have a synagogue of the Jews, so they have a big Jewish presence. Look at verse 2. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. The word manner there means custom. Paul had a way of doing things. He had a custom. When he went to a city, he found out where the Jews were, and he went to the Jews first, and if he was allowed to, he taught Christ to them. Paul does this everywhere he goes. God established it this way. Paul, in writing to the Romans in Romans 1 16, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Jesus Christ came to the Jews. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. So since the Jews rejected Jesus Christ, as foretold in the Old Testament that they would, good news for us Gentiles, right? Jesus Christ is now preached unto us. We have the power, the ability, and the Holy Spirit sent to convict us of our sin and need for a Savior. So the manner is, you go to the Jews first in planning a church, and you preach if they'll let you, and you see what becomes of that, and if they kick you out, then you go preach to everybody else in the city. Notice that Paul preached in this synagogue for three Sabbath days. That means for three Saturdays, Paul went in and taught Christ. Evidently, it was acceptable on the first Saturday. Evidently, it was acceptable on the second Saturday. But something happened on the third Saturday. Somebody got their feel of it. That occurs today. Sometimes people visit here one Sunday, two Sundays, and the third Sunday I'm a heretic and you all haters and they leave and don't come back. And we can't explain that. We've done nothing but love them, but that happens. That occurs. It's to be expected when churches are growing. But he reasons with them for three Sabbath days. Notice this. It may seem trivial, but it needs to be pointed out. He reasons for three Sabbath days out of the Scriptures. He didn't reason with them out of an Andy Griffith Bible study. He didn't reason with them out of the Avengers movie. He didn't reason with them out of Harry Potter. He didn't reason with them out of some popular book. He reasoned with them out of the Old Testament Scriptures, and that's all he had access to, and that's all that he needed. My design is to reason with you out of the 66 books we call the Bible. I'm not going to drag in other books. There are other good books, but that's not where the power is. That's not where the truth is. The truth is contained in this book. And we don't need any other books except the Bible in order to show forth and prove Christ. Look at verse 3. opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. So what was the aim of his preaching? The aim of his preaching was to lift up Jesus Christ. Those two words opening and alleging. Now we don't use those words like they used them in 1611 when the King James Bible was written. Opening and alleging. That would make it seem like we were trying to make something true. Actually, those two words mean showing and proving. In other words, he would read the psalm and he would say, you see that mysterious part in there? Let me explain to you who that guy is. You see where it says, my son will be called out of Egypt? Well, this same Jesus, when Herod was wanting to kill him, fled to Egypt. And when Herod died, he came back to Bethlehem. You see that part in there where it says, cursed is anyone who hangs upon a tree? Well, when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, he bore the curse for us. He would take these Old Testament passages that were mysterious and seemed not to make sense, and from these passages, He would preach to them Christ. This same pattern of preaching is our pattern today. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, or chapter 4 verse 2, a couple weeks ago in our Wednesday night Bible study, we talked about it. Paul's instruction to Timothy was to preach the Word, to be instant in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. That's the exact same thing that Paul is doing in the synagogue in Thessalonica. He's reproving, rebuking and exhorting. He's correcting what's wrong. He's pointing to the truth by conviction and he's encouraging them to believe it. And he's doing that with long-suffering and doctrine. He's doing it patiently. He's not expecting it to occur overnight or during the magic moment at the end of service when we sing Just as I Am 35 times until it happens. That's not what Paul's doing. Paul is teaching and preaching and patiently allowing the doctrine of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit to sink into their hearts. He's convincing them. Why is this so important? He's convincing them that Jesus Christ, look at what it says, must have or needs have suffered and risen again from the dead. Why was this important to the Jews? Because the Jews were a proud people. You see, God had chosen them above all other groups of the people. And sometimes, even we as Christians, when we realize we're chosen by God, we get a little boastful, we get a little proud. Well, God picked me. and I'm chosen and I'm elect and I'm precious. Well, over time and over hundreds of years, these Jews were a proud people and they couldn't fathom the thought of their King and Savior suffering and dying. You see, it's a stumbling block to the Jews. Paul says in the book of Romans, I'm sorry, in the book of 1 Corinthians, we preach Christ crucified. It's a stumbling block to the Jews. In the Old Testament, the Lord said, Behold, I lay a stone in Zion, a true stone, a cornerstone. That stone was Christ. Jesus said, I'm the stone that you, the builders, have rejected. The Jews don't want to have a Savior who suffers and dies. They want to have a Savior who rules and reigns. And God's program required Him to come and suffer first. Paul says, it must needs be so. It needs to happen. Why did it need to happen? Jesus Christ needed to come and live a perfect, sin-free life without any sin. He needed to come and be absolutely pure as a lamb without spot or wrinkle. He needed to die in order to taste death for every man. He needed to die in my place, in your place. He must die because of us or we are still worthy of death. He needed to pay my debt. You know what my debt was? Death. Death by sin. Sin caused death and someone had to die in my place. Substitutionary atonement. Jesus Christ must die. He must suffer. Why? I should have suffered. I should have bore the full wrath of God. But in my place, Jesus did that. And here's the proof. that it was God doing it. He rose again. He defeated death and hell and the grave. I'm not going to hell. I'm not going to stay dead. My body's not going to lay in the grave. All of those things were defeated by the work of Christ. That's why it's necessary for Him to suffer and bleed and die so that I would be saved from all of those eternally. This is the same message that we preach today. We don't have some newfangled idea. We don't have some new doctrine. I saw a church one time and their slogan was, where God's doing a new thing. I thought, how strange. He hadn't done anything new in 2,000 years. It's the same message. It's the same program. It's the same method. We do exactly what Paul's doing at Thessalonica every Sabbath and every Sunday here. This is Paul's reasoning, or preaching if you will. Now let's look at a promising response in verse 4. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. Some believed. All will never believe. You don't find anywhere that they all believed. If they say they all, it means a small group of the larger group that was there. You never find that everyone's going to believe. Matter of fact, Jesus never promised that everyone would believe. God never promised that everyone would believe. As a matter of fact, the other is true. Many are called, but few are chosen. There's not going to be this great majority of people that believe in Christ. It was never designed to be that way. So some believed and they consorted with Paul and Silas. The word consort means to join with or to link up. In other words, they said, we're not really Jews. We believe that Jesus Christ came and purchased our sin. We don't need to keep offering sacrifice and killing doves and killing goats and killing lambs. And we no longer need to do that because Christ paid that debt. Therefore, we're going to join up with Paul and Silas and Timothy. You see what's happening here? That's what happens when God saves us from sin. When He forgives us and redeems us from the curse of sin, do you know what we naturally want to do? We naturally want to join up with other people who believe just like us. I don't understand people that say they got saved and they don't want to go to church. I don't understand people that say that God saved them and redeemed them from sin and set their feet on a rock and established their going and they hate the rest of God's people. That doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense to Scripture. Something's wrong. Be careful now. It could be that there ain't any true Christians for them to unite with. Or number two, it could be they're not truly Christian. Not for me to decide, I just know it ain't right. So, who did believe? Devout Greeks. These would be proselytes. People who were not of Jewish birth, but who believed in one true God and believed the God of the Jews was the real God. And they were going to the synagogue and worshipping there. And guess what? Here comes Paul preaching the good news of the Gospel. That Jesus Christ died for all. Not just the Jews, but for Greeks. He died for people in Thessalonica. And they said, oh, that's good news because these Greeks are pushed over here in the corner and the Jews don't let them fully participate. But Paul comes in and says Jesus Christ purchased their pardon just like he purchased the pardon of some Jews. So the devout Greeks, it says, a great multitude of them believed. That's good news. That's the gospel preaching. That's good news to us. Most of them believed and of the chief women. These would be those respected ladies in the church who were responsible for teaching all of the younger women. These would be women in the church. It would be well known to everybody in the synagogue who had the task of being looked up to and instructing other ladies. All of this group. This is not a few. That means a lot of them. Most of this group believed what Paul was preaching. So these people, these groups constitute a good majority of people. Up until this point in Paul's ministry, he's not gone anywhere and preached and had great numbers of people come to him. As a matter of fact, it's been the opposite. He's gone and preached and a very few handful of people have believed and then he's gotten kicked out. He went to Philippi and what? Lydia's family, a slave woman that was demon possessed and a jailer's family. So Paul spends a night in prison and is publicly beaten for two families and a slave girl to make up the church when he leaves. Here, after three Sabbaths of preaching, he's got a great multitude of Greeks and a great number of the prestigious women in the church are following him. He's got what seems to be a large group of people. Now, this leads me to ask a question. Who determines the size of the church? Now, if Paul was preaching this message in Philippi and a great bunch of people didn't come, and he was preaching this message somewhere else and a great bunch of people didn't come, why in the world are they all showing up at Thessalonica as this holy ground? Did they finally grab their tomato steak in the right place and did they get it right? Did Paul become a good preacher between here and the last city? Who determines the size of the church? Well, me and Crystal are in agreeance. Anybody else want to weigh in? Who determines the size of the church? God. The book of Acts has been clear thus far. And the Lord added unto the church daily such as should be saved. And the Lord added unto the church 3,000 souls. And the Lord added unto the church 5,000 souls. God grows the church. And if the church is not big, that's not your problem. That's not my problem. We're called to be faithful whether there's three or three thousand. We're not excused from faithfulness because no one else is faithful. I don't tailor my messages to the size of the congregation. Well, there's not very many here today. I'm going to be nice and we'll all leave in 20 minutes. I don't have a clue who's going to show up. It's summertime. We got everybody's on vacation. I've been on vacation. It's part of it. But that doesn't excuse things. We're still called to be faithful and trust that God is adding to the church daily if we do what He's asked us to do. Now, if we fail Him and we don't do what we're told to do and we're not faithful, then God sends them somewhere else where they are. But we're called to do what we're supposed to do and we're not to worry about the size of the church. That's the Lord's business. We're to be faithful regardless. Jesus said, he that is faithful with little will be given much. It's not an excuse or a license to do what we want, but rather it's a call to be more and more faithful. So there's a promising response, but there's also a persecution that comes from the religious. You know, one of the things that has boggled my mind more than anything else is that most of the problems that the church has comes from the church. You know, when I first started preaching about six years ago, I thought everybody in the church was a fire-breathing, gospel-preaching Christian. And the rest of the world was just rotten. You know what I found out? About 75% of the people in the church was rotten or worse than those outside the church. And I'd go knock on the door and I'd say, I'd like to have you come so and so bad to church. And they'd say, I'm better than everybody in your church. And I'd say, well, we'd talk a little bit and I'd kind of leave concluded that, you know what? You're better than most of the people in it. You're better than I am. Why am I inviting you to go to church? You see, the church is filled with people who really don't make up the church. The Bible gives us an illustration of wheat and tares. And we ought to do our bed-level best to make sure we got wheat here, but we're not going to eliminate tares. There are going to be people in religious clothes who claim to love God, but really do not. And if you look in verses 5 down through the end of verse 9, the problem is not coming from the people in the town, it's coming from the people in the synagogue where Paul was preaching, where all of these people were on the rolls. Look at verse 5. But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy and took them, certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. This wasn't a police station. This wasn't a U.S. Marshal's office. This was the church. Look at what it says. The Jews. that believed not. These people heard Paul preach for three Saturdays. And for three Saturdays, they went along with what was being preached. Amen, amen, that's good stuff, amen. What changed? Envy. Your Bible, there's the word envy there. That means to be jealous. What were they jealous of? They were jealous that the people like Paul and Silas They were jealous that a great number of the proselytes followed Paul. They were jealous that a great number of the older, respected women followed Paul. Do you know what makes preachers matter in anything else? Some people in their church going to somebody else's church. You'll go to an association meeting and they'll be talking about a guy that got some of their members and something, something, something, sheep stealer, something, something, something, stealing my people, something, something, something. They don't like that. They envy them. Hey, if that guy is preaching the Word of God better than me, I pray that all of you go there. And then I'll figure out how to do it right and start over. It's not a matter of popularity. It's not a matter of, I've got more people and I've got these people. Listen, that's selfish ambitions that well up in the heart of man and every preacher has experienced it to some degree. We have. It hurts when people leave. It hurts when they go somewhere else. But that's no excuse to level charges at another church. That's no excuse to start planning the takeover of another group of people. I want you to notice what these religious people did. They didn't go down there in their religious clothes and file charges. They found certain lewd fellows of a baser sort. You ever put all them words in one sentence before? Ludefellows means evil men of a baser sort means they're from the marketplace. We're talking about con artists. We're talking about people who were well-known. We're talking about people who were evil men, who would do anything for money, and they said, hey, there's a little money in this. If you guys will go down there, get a bunch of people on your side, drag these men out of Jason's house, and take them down there and file charges against them, we'll pay you money. We'll make it worth your while. This is a typical assault upon the church because these people always use someone else to do their dirty work. You see, it would make them look bad. Remember what Herod said to the Pharisees when they wanted him to kill Christ? He said, judge him according to your laws. If he's worthy of death, go stone him. What did the Pharisees say? Oh, he hadn't broken any of our laws. Herod said, I don't find any fault in him. Oh, you've got to crucify him. Why? Because the Pharisees don't want to do it themselves. They want somebody else to do their dirty work. These Jews want these guys from the marketplace to do the dirty work. Everybody wants this done, but nobody wants to be the one that does it. And these guys are looking for a quick buck, and they're like, well, go get them. We'll go get them. We'll drag them out. We'll do this. Now, let me ask you something. If these guys were truly on God's side and these guys were truly religious, why wouldn't they pray about this? I'll be honest with you. I get frustrated with a Jehovah's Witness every day. I get frustrated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints every day. But I'm not going to go throw rocks through their windows. I'm not going to drag them out in the yard and burn a cross in their yard. I'm not going to wish ill will on them. But the Bible tells me to pray for them. This proves that God's will is not on their side. They vacated the principles of God. They took matters in their own hands. They're going to try to settle this themselves. So they set the whole city in an uproar. This is a riot. They go down to the house of Jason. Now, the reason they're at the house of Jason is because Jason put them up. He allowed them to stay there. And if you're a leader in the church and you're serving in the church, you've got a bullseye on your back and everybody else is not going to like you. I'm not talking about those within the church, but I'm talking about if you're doing something for God, Satan wants you to stop and he'll use everybody he's got to get you to stop. This is the way it works. Satan's not interested with shooting people way back behind the lines. He's concerned about them up in the trenches right there on the front lines. That's who's getting shot at by the enemy. So look at the next verse. It says in verse 6 that they found them not and they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city. These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. Now when they drew him out of the house, they needed someone to pin this on. They needed a face and a name. They needed somebody to be the poster boy of the problem. They thought it was going to be Paul. They thought it was going to be Silas. But they weren't there. So they drug these men out and they said, here's your problem right here. This is the guy. Just look at him. You know how mean Christians look anyways. You know how rough we look. We're such a motley crew. We just look like criminals. Here he is. Here's Jason. Look at verse seven. Whom hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, one Jesus. He received Paul. He let Paul and Silas and Timothy stay with him, and here's what they're doing. They're going around teaching there's another king. Really? King Jesus? What'd Jesus say about his kingdom? My kingdom's not of this world. If it was, my people would fight. Is Jason fighting? No. His king is not in this world. This is simply a lie. This is what Satan's done. He's taken the teachings of Christianity and made them into a lie. So here's what's happened. They said, here he is. He's teaching there's somebody else. This would be treason. You're saying there's another king. Folks, listen to me. As a preacher, I don't have the right to get up here and preach that you ought to follow another leader other than our president. He's our president. You need to support him and recognize him for who he is. But I can tell you with absolute certainty, I serve another king also who's not of this world. And one of these days, he's going to come back and straighten out all the problems our current kings have got us into. But until he comes back, I'm serving this bunch. So, verse 8, And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. Imagine hearing all these lies. You've got a nice quiet town. Now you've got a riot. There's people in the street running around. Everybody's in an uproar. The last thing you want is the Roman government coming down there to squash out an uprising. Every politician's concerned for his job. So here's what they do. Verse 9, it says that when they had taken security of Jason and the others, they let them go. Security is basically bail. Jason said, guys, I've never caused any trouble in my life. I've never been in the middle of a riot. I've never been in an uproar. I was in my own home. We were sitting around the table playing Yahtzee. All of a sudden there's people banging on my door and me and my wife and some others get drug outside in the yard and now we're in jail. We've never done anything wrong. We're not going to leave. I've got a business here. I was born and raised here. The rulers say, yeah, yeah, you're right. So they take a security. A security is just a little bit different than a bail. Bail is that you'll come back and have a court hearing. You'll come back and go through the court examination, security is that you will not do it again. In other words, if there was another uprising, if there was another problem, and Jason was found to be in it, he loses his security. Kind of like being put on probation. So this is where they are. The religious hate the true church the most. The religious want to stop the birth of a church in Thessalonica. But the thing is, the religious don't want to get their hands dirty trying to stomp them out. So they use anything and everything they can do, hands off, to stop it. There's something we've intentionally overlooked. It's the preacher's reputation. If you look with me in the latter part of verse 6, it says, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. Now these guys from the market, these fellows of the baser sort, these lewd fellows of the baser sort, these guys that didn't know a thing in the world about Judaism or Christianity, they knew who Paul and Silas were. It's that these men These group, who is we talking about? Who are we talking about here? We're talking about Paul and Silas and Timothy. What had they heard? They had heard what they did at Philippi. They had heard how the earthquake came and broke their chains off. They had heard how they didn't get up and run out of prison, but they stayed there. They had seen the miracle of conversion. They heard of the demon-possessed woman who could no longer tell fortunes because they had cast the demon out of her. They had heard about their work. They knew who they were. They said, these men have turned the world upside down. They turned the world on its head. Really? These three guys, Paul and Silas and Timothy, two relatively new Christians and a missionary have turned the world upside down. This might be a stretch, but let me tell you this much. They were well known. People knew what they believed. People knew what they taught. People knew what happened where they went. There was a noticeable difference where these people had been. Here's our problem. We live in the Bible Belt. We don't look any different than anywhere else. Same clothes that are sold in New York City. You know where they don't even make pecan sauce that's real pecan sauce. The same thing that's sold in New York City for clothing is worn in Van Buren, Arkansas. The same speech that's spoken in some hideous place like Las Vegas. Same words are spoken here. The same TV shows that's watched in Sin City, New Orleans, the same TV shows are watched here. The same ideas that are promoted in San Francisco are taught here. Didn't you see the gay pride parade we had in Fayetteville this past week on the news? This whole week, every year, has been declared Gay Pride Week in our area. We live in the Bible Belt. We've got churches on every corner. We've got more churches than we've got libraries. We've got more churches than we've got schools. We've even got church schools. Why isn't this place upside down from the rest of the world? I have your answer. We don't have the same reputation that this church has. We don't have the same reputation that these men had. We're not turning anybody upside down. What is our reputation and how do we fix it? Our reputation is one of being large and quiet. The Southern Baptist Convention is called the Sleeping Giant. 16.3 million people and we don't make any waves in this country. If 16.8 million people or 16.2 million people stood up and voted with biblical principles, people would be catering to us. 16.2 million people agreed to talk a certain way and watch certain TV programs. There'd be stuff on there. It's 16.2 million people. I'm not talking about other denominations. I'm talking about Southern Baptists. If we, as Southern Baptists, look and act like we claim to believe what the Bible says, the world would be a different place. The idol makers when we came to town would be concerned. But it's not that way. So how do we change our reputation to turn the world upside down? Well, in order to turn the world upside down, you must first turn a few things off. It's a negative part of my message. You've got to turn some things off. Number one, turn off your TV. Oh, I didn't say get a shotgun and shoot it. When I was in church as a kid, somebody in our church got all anti-TV, got his kids and wife out there in the front yard and shot his TV with a shotgun. I thought, man, I'd like to have that TV. I didn't have a TV. My mom and dad had a little black and white in the bedroom and a little color one in the kitchen slash living room, dining room. I would have loved to have their TV in my room. I didn't say, throw your TV away. I said, turn it off. There's junk that comes in on your TV and you glue your head to it for an hour at a time and it's filth that you ought to know to turn it off. Leonard Ravenhill, the old revival preacher, said you can't tear down the strongholds of the devil if you can't even get up and turn your television set off. How are you going to turn the world upside down when you can't even turn the TV off? How about this? How about you turn the movies off? You know the rate it are for a reason? I remember when PG-13 came out, I was like 15. I thought, huh, doesn't apply to me. We go watch tons of movies that are nothing more than just cussing, and sex, and drugs, and law-breaking, and we call it entertainment, and we watch it for hours and hours at a time. And you know what we do? By watching these movies all the time, here's what we do. We support the people that promote that junk. Who do you think lives in Hollywood? Huh? You think a bunch of preachers and nuns live in Hollywood? You think a bunch of sweet folks that have good ol' American values live in Hollywood? You think that's who lives there and you think that's who makes money off these movies? Now here's what I didn't say. I didn't say you couldn't watch movies. But you're not going to turn the world upside down if you can't turn some movies off. How about this? This is close to home. How about you turn your computer off every once in a while? I assure you Facebook will be there tomorrow. I assure you Twitter will still be giving a news feed. I assure you those video games will still be there tomorrow. Turn your computer off. While we're turning it off, let's turn up. How about turning your recliner up? I know, I like it more than anybody else. I like to pull that lever. Do what it's called, recline. If we're going to turn the world upside down, we're going to have to pull that lever the other way and get up and do something about it. We're going to have to turn the recliner up. We're going to have to turn the noise down. And by noise, I mean all the distractions and bells and whistles in our life that call our attention. Do you realize that we don't go anywhere without cell phones? Do you realize that we can't do anything without a cell phone? As soon as there's silence in our life, we get a cell phone out. You've got to get the noise out of your life. You've got to have some quiet time with God or you're never going to turn the world upside down. It'll not happen. You'll not do it. You've got to clear out some of the noise that's drawing your attention in order for you to think about what really matters. I knew you wouldn't like this part of my message, but bless God, it's the truth. So, we've turned off, we've turned down, turned over. What can we turn up? How about we turn up some prayers? How about we pray a little more and a little more often, a little louder, with a little more consistency? How about we be serious with what we want from God and not be selfish or self-centered? How about we pray about something other than the condition we're currently in? Sometimes when we pray for a shower on another man's field, God sends one on ours even though we didn't ask for it. Some of the most humbling times I've ever spent in prayer was when I was praying for somebody else's church that was having a hard time. How about we get serious with prayer? Since we've already turned the TV off and the movies off and the computer off and the noise off and we're out of the recliner, how about we spend some time turning up prayer? While we're turning up, let's turn up praise. Man, if anybody ever sings in church, it ought to be us. We got something to sing about. I tell you, I visit some churches and you'd think we arrived at a funeral. And I know it's not because they can't see the words in the hymnal. I got a big screen right here of the words and letters of this talk. They got a full orchestra playing back here. They got a full band on the stage and eight people leading singing. And it sounds like this. It's just a bunch of mumbling. How you gonna turn the world upside down when you can't even let your voice ring out for God? It's like pulling teeth to get you to praise Him. Turned up, we've turned off, we've turned down. How about we turn our hearts to God and cry out in repentance? for our lack of action, our lack of faith, our lack of commitment, our lack of duty. I said our, not yours. I'm including myself. If anyone in here needs to repent, it's me. This is my responsibility and I've failed at it many times. I ain't got much of a reputation because I myself have been guilty of the TV, the computer, the movie, the noise, the recliner, the lack of praise, the lack of prayer. So the only thing I have to do is to turn my heart to God and say, Lord, I have failed you so many times. You've been so faithful to me. You've been so good to me. You've given me more than I could ever ask for. And this pitiful excuse is all I've given you in return. I was discussing with a preacher friend of mine from Mississippi this week. And I said, what's the problem with our churches? He said, we use a term called commitment. There's no commitment. He said in other countries they don't use the term commitment. They use the term surrender. Because he said sometimes we're committed to church. Sometimes we're committed to family. Sometimes we're committed to this. Sometimes we're committed to the job. He said our commitments change. He said but in other countries they don't use the word commitment. In China they don't use commitment. In India they don't use commitment. Here's what they say. They don't want you to commit. They want you to surrender. And surrender to God. Now, there's a concept. If we surrender to God and we say, I'm yours, you win, I give up, then I'll remain committed at home. I'll remain committed at church. I'll remain committed here. I'll remain committed at work because Jesus Christ is my Lord. We're ever going to turn the world upside down. It's going to take at least one church to surrender and turn some things around. Amen.